Finding God

Birth

GOD IS LOVE

God is love.—I John 4:16

MY TEXT IS TAKEN from I John, and it is one of those texts the world does not believe. If I could make everyone believe this text, I would not preach a sermon. If we all believed it, we would not need a sermon. God is love. That is one of the texts the Devil would like to blot out of the Bible. For six thousand years he has been going up and down the world trying to make men believe that God is not love. Love begets love, and hate begets hate. Let me tell any one of you that I heard a man say this week that you were one of the meanest men in town, and you will soon come to the conclusion that the man who said that was the meanest man you ever heard of. Let me tell you that I heard a man say he thought more of you than of any other man in the city, and though you may not have thought about him before, your love will spring up and you will say, I think a great deal of that man.

Now, men are believing the Devil’s lies when they don’t believe God is love. A few years ago, when we built a church in Chicago, a friend put up over the pulpit in gas jets the words, God is love. We thought, if we couldn’t preach it into the hearts of the people we would burn it in. A man happened to see that text up there, and he said to himself: God is not love; God does not love me; and he came around into the church, not to hear the sermon, but to see the text as it was burning there upon the wall. The arrow reached its mark. He went into the inquiry meeting. I asked what it was that impressed him. He said it was not the sermon; it was those words that had burned into his soul. He was weeping, and he wanted to know what he should do to be saved.

God is love. I hope this text will find its way into every heart. I want to prove it from Scripture. The great trouble with men is, they are all the time trying to measure God by their own rule, and from their own standpoint. A man is apt to judge others from his own standard. If a man is covetous, he thinks everyone else is covetous. If he is a selfish man, he thinks everyone else is selfish. If a man is guilty of adultery, he thinks every other man is. If a man is dishonest, he thinks every other man is. Many are trying to bring God down to their own level. They don’t know that between human love and divine love there is as much difference as there is between darkness and light. God’s love is deep and high; Paul says it passeth knowledge. We love a man as long as he is worthy of our love, and when he is not we cast him off; but we don’t find in the Word of God that God casts off those who are not worthy of His love. If He did, there would be no one in the kingdom of God except Jesus Himself. He was worthy of love.

Turn to John 13:1: Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. Now we find His love is unchangeable. He knew His disciples were to forsake Him and leave Him. Peter was to deny Him with a curse. Judas was that night to betray Him with a kiss, and sell Him for thirty pieces of silver. He knew that that night, when the Shepherd was smitten, the whole flock was to be scattered. Yet it is said, He loved them right through it all. His love is unchangeable; His disciples were never dearer to Him than that hour when He was betrayed. Some people think that, because they are not worthy of His love, He is going to cast them off.

It says in Isaiah 49:15, 16: Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. There is no woman on this earth that loves like a mother. There is no love on earth so strong as a mother’s love. A great many things will separate a man from his wife, or a father from a son; but nothing will separate a true mother from her child. She will love him through all his sin and iniquity. He may sink so low that a hiss will go up against him from every human being, but the mother loves him through it all. God takes that for an illustration. He says: Can a woman forget her … child? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me. His love is unchangeable. He loved Judas, when Judas betrayed Him with a kiss. I should have thought that love would have broken the heart of Judas. The soul that goes down to Hell must go over God’s love. You have to trample that love under your feet.

It is said in Jeremiah 31:3: I have loved thee with an everlasting love. He loves us with an everlasting love; that means, love without end. The only way you can get into the pit of Hell is to go right over the love of God; you cannot get there in any other way. God so loved the world that He gave His Son to die for you. That is what will make Hell so terrible. It is because you have to go over the love of God. Some people say: I like some proof of love. If a man told me he loved me, and never gave me any token, and never showed his love by any act, it would not be long before I would doubt his love.

There is love by the tongue, but that does not strike down into the heart. That is not worth much. God does not say He loves us without giving us some proof of His love. Isaiah 63:9 says: In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. Now see how beautiful it is: In all their affliction he was afflicted. You cannot afflict one of God’s own without afflicting Him. No man could strike that little child but He would feel the blow more than the child. He takes the place of a loving father, and now He says: In all their affliction he was afflicted … in his love and in his pity he redeemed them. That is what He wants you to believe—that He loves you, and is in sympathy with you.

Not only that, but in Isaiah 38:17 it is said: Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. Now, out of love to my soul, says the prophet, He has taken all my sins, not a part of them, and cast them behind His back. Now tell me, how is Satan going to get at our sins, if God has put them behind His back? If God has washed us, how is Satan going to find anything against us? Who shall say anything against God’s elect? The prophet says: Out of love to my soul He has taken all my sins, and cast them behind His back. Satan could get behind my back, but he cannot pass the Lord God Almighty. He has not taken part of them. I like that little word all—all my sins.

Suppose my little boy had committed ten sins, and he came to me and confessed, and wanted me to forgive him and I would say: I will forgive you nine of them, but one is such a big one I will not forgive that. That would not do him any good. A lady came into the inquiry room, and she thought the Lord had forgiven all her sins but one, and that was too great. The Lord does not do that; He forgives all. The prophet says: Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. Is not that a proof of His love, that He forgives us freely? If I attempt to cover my sins they will find me out; if I dig a grave, I cannot bury them so deep but they will have a resurrection. But the Lord takes them away; not one of them shall ever be mentioned: they are gone for time and eternity. Is not that a proof of God’s love, that He has taken all our sins out of the way and put them behind His back forever?

Then Paul says: He loved me, and he gave himself for me, as if there were not another man in the wide, wide world that the Lord Jesus Christ loved but Paul. He took the benefit of what Christ had done; and in order to get the benefit from Christ we must appropriate Him to ourselves. He loved me, and he gave himself for me. Is not that a proof of His love? To think He loved us so that He gave Himself for us should make us love Him.

Turn to I Corinthians 8:3. Here is one verse to which I want to call your attention. But if any man love God, the same is known of him. Some people say, Oh, yes, I love God, and never do it. You never see it in their lives or in their actions; you never see it in anything they do. Now let me tell you, you may deceive your neighbors or yourself; you may join some church, and profess to love God. You may make a great profession of religion; you may be a teacher in some Sunday school; but the Lord God looks into the heart to see if there is some love.

Many a man is resting his hope upon having joined some church. What God wants is love. If love does not prompt us to work for God, it is all abomination to Him. He cannot want sacrifice; it is love in the heart He wants. This verse says, If any man—I like those words—if any man—I don’t care who it is—if any man love God, the same is known of him. God knows all about him. God measures his love, and He knows how deep it is, how broad it is. If any man love God, the same is known of him. God knows the street you live on and the number of your house. He knows all about you. He said there was not a sparrow that fell to the ground without His notice. He knows all about the sparrows; He hears the young ravens when they cry. He says the very hairs of our heads are numbered. Is not that love? If I pull out a hair, I throw it down and don’t think much of it; but God knows all about it. That is love. I see mothers think a great deal of their babes; but I never heard of a mother that loved a babe so much that she numbered the hairs of its head.

God is looking down to see how many are loving Him. He knows your heart; you cannot conceal it. If you love Him, He will make His abode with you; but if your heart is full of malice and bitterness, the Lord cannot dwell with you. If you love Him, then He comes and makes His abode with you.

Then there is another verse I want to call your attention to. There are some people who love God, and yet get into darkness because things go against them. They get almost to doubting God’s love. If you are such a one, I want to call your attention to Romans 8:28: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Emphasize that little word all. A great many leave it out. They say some things work together for good to them that love the Lord. If you do a good stroke in business, you say that is one of the things that work for good; but if you lose a great deal, you do not think it is. Now it may be that the losses will work more for your good than your successes. Let a man have prosperity, and how he turns away from God! It was when Jerusalem got fat that it kicked against God. See how this nation has been sinking into iniquity since the war. Men turn their influence against God and His cause. You need not go out of your own acquaintance to see that. People want prosperity, and that often turns them against God. Paul says: All things work together for good to them that love God. Do you love Him?

I had a little girl taken down a few years ago with scarlet fever. I was very anxious about her, and I went to a physician with whom I was well acquainted. He wrote a prescription, and I took it to one of the leading druggists, and said, I want you to carefully fill this. I watched him as he went to a shelf and took down a great many different kinds of bottles, and he poured some out of each of them, and put it all in one and mixed it up. Then he put it in another bottle and stamped it and gave it to me. Perhaps the medicine from any one of those bottles would have been rank poison and would have killed the child; but they, being all mixed together, were just the medicine the child needed, and it worked for good and saved the child.

So it is that all things work together for good to them that love God. It is a little affliction here, a little trouble, and a little persecution—all working together for good. Some of you may have lost a little child a while ago; but perhaps you had no thoughts of Heaven until God took that child. A lady came into the inquiry room, and she had had no thought of Heaven for a long time; but death came and took two of her lambs, and now she wants to follow them.

I was told a story of a man in Palestine. He saw a shepherd coming down to a stream with his flock. The shepherd tried to get them into the water, but they would not follow him. They came to the bank of the river, but they would not follow him in. He took a little lamb and putting it into his bosom plunged into the river and took it to the other side. The old sheep then, instead of trembling, began to look up at him and bleat. In a few minutes the whole flock went over, and he then put the lamb down and led the sheep away into the green pasture.

The Great Shepherd takes the little lambs to the hilltops of glory, and then the father begins to love and serve God. Out of love to